CLEVELAND, Ohio - "Tonight, the credits are rolling to the very end," said Jody Girgenti, a producer of "My Friend Dahmer" as she introduced the Northeast Ohio-filmed movie to a sold-out crowd at its hometown premiere at the Cleveland Cinematheque.

That's because among the 300-some audience members were cast, crew and even the real-life counterparts to some of the film's starring characters.

Girgenti appeared at the premiere along with director Marc Meyers and Cleveland's John Derf Backderf, the artist who created the 2012 graphic novel of the same title that the movie is based on.

"Dahmer" is slated to open Nov. 3 in New York and L.A. before expanding wider through FilmRise.

Waiting through every last credit doesn't seem like much time at all after Backderf relayed to attendees that the movie was "a decade in the making." That's five years to write the book and another five to make the film.

The film about notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer became one of the most anticipated indie movies of the year after making its world premiere this April at the Tribeca Film Festival.

"Dahmer" chronicles Backderf's memories of his friendship with the serial killer, a high school classmate, during the 1970s. The memoir takes readers into Dahmer's troubled youth, their antics at Revere High School in Richfield, Ohio, and the events leading up to Dahmer's first murder.

The stunning transformation of Disney star Ross Lynch into a young Dahmer piqued early interest. Anne Heche and Dallas Roberts also star as Dahmer's parents, and Alex Wolff portrays a young Backderf.

The momentum began much earlier, however. In 2014, Meyers's screenplay was selected as part of the Black List, which features Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays.

In a post-screening Q&A, the trio addressed bringing the graphic novel to life. Despite taking some cinematic liberties, Meyers said he was meticulous about staying true to Backderf's accounts in the book.

"You have to extenuate certain emotions beyond what a book can say for what a movie needs to experience," Meyers said. "I did use the panels from the book in my storyboards and carried them around on set, so I could always point to his work and say, 'We're honoring this frame, this panel.'"

Back in May, Backderf told Cleveland.com that he'd like to see "Dahmer" contribute to more graphic novels and comics being similarly adapted.

"Hopefully it helps get more comics made into films and TV series, comics outside the tired superdude genre," he said. "We're in a golden era of graphic novels right now. Every month sees the release of dozens of incredible books."

At the screening, Backderf hinted that his latest graphic novel, "Trashed," loosely based on his year spent as a trash collector, could be his next film project.

Like "Trashed," "Dahmer" is a story about the extraordinary within everyday life. Hearing Backderf, Meyers and Girgenti together, that serendipity became all the more apparent.

"We had been interested in telling the story of a portrait of a serial killer as a young boy," said Girgenti. "Marc happened upon an advanced copy of 'My Friend Dahmer' and it was a real version of an idea we had. The fact that this was Derf's actual story made it that much more exciting for us as storytellers."

Backderf told the audience it was a story he always knew he was going to tell.

"This is a story no one else had," he said. "When it all unfolded, I realized I had this thing that fell from the sky and landed at my feet. I always look for stories that haven't been told before, or in a way that hasn't been told before."

It's no secret that the film only builds up to Dahmer's first murder. After that, Backderf said, he "just becomes another monster."

He was more interested in Dahmer's spiral because he saw it first-hand - and because he sees similar missed signs in other young serial killers throughout history.

"I see the same mistakes over and over and over again," Backderf told the crowd. "I think it is a cautionary tale, and there are things here worth pondering and things worth talking about."